today, president obama wants to let the bush era tax cuts expire for wealthy americans only, taking up their marginal federal tax rate from 36% to 39.6%. we're talking about a 3.6 percentage point uptick for households making more than $250,000 a year, only on every dollar they make above the $250,000 amount. starts 2 s at $251,000. it is on the money you make on the margin. now, while i totally agree every penny counts when it comes to your money, when you compare that to the taxes most americans paid out in past decades, when there was phenomenal economic growth, i don't get why republicans are screaming bloody murder about this 3.6%. what if we were all to chip in a little more. we need taxes, we need government programs, particularly the ones that use the scale and scope of government to get better deals and greater efficiency than the private enterprise can achieve. now, despite what you're being told, taxes as they stand are not an impediment to our long-term economic growth. not getting a grip on government spending will be an impediment. the solution can be found by looking for